Unchecked Feelings....

[loulou7]

Thank you so much @PinkPebbles, for starting this thread… And to the all the posters, who have shared their gems of wisdom and experiences, it’s very encouraging.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

You’ve been misunderstood. Slammed. Lied about. Something is going around and it isn’t true.

Your choice? Vindication.

“I have to explain myself. I have to get them to understand,” you say to yourself, and so off you go to fix things, manage the situation, get people to understand. And suddenly God slips from the throne of your life and up you crawl to take your rightful place.

Screech. “Stop this ride, I want to get off!”

It’s time to take a lesson from Jesus and get back on track. Listen, He wasn’t in the habit of explaining everything when He was walking on earth. Almost unimaginably, He left misunderstandings to correct themselves- or better said, He left it to God to work things out in the lives of the people who misunderstood him, lied about him, or generally hated him.

Isn’t His example good enough for you? Or are you willing to imitate the perfect one?

Sure, it won’t be easy, but godliness rarely is. As long as you are looking for vindication in the eyes of other human beings, you are going to be completely distracted from God.

And that distraction will affect your heart, your mind, and your body. Get your focus off the world and onto God.

What people think or say has no bearing on eternity. Don’t give them more power over you than they deserve, but choose to make your investment in the eternal and let the King work out the temporary for Himself.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know God by Hayley DiMarco

The strong Christian is the one who has a life filled with prayer.

Prayerlessness leaves a believer weakened and fearful. When things aren’t happening in your life, when hope is lost, when emotions run wild, the first place to look is your prayerlessness.

When a God woman prays, she calls on the name of the Lord and He listens.

She makes it clear to herself and to her God who is the most important person of all and places more emphasis on communion with him than on pleasure, busyness, and distraction.

Prayerlessness is one of the most common sins in the life of a believer, but when you don’t pray you don’t worship the God you claim to serve. Prayerlessness can derail even the strongest believer. If your life isn’t producing everything you imagined it would, then look at your prayer life.

The amount of time you spend speaking with God, pleading with Him, and seeking His mind directly affects your success in every area of your life.

When a God woman prays, really prays, she finds doors that were slammed shut opening in front of her. She finds life changing around her and within her. She releases the power of the Holy Spirit in her life and begins to find more hope and peace than she ever dreamed existed.

You can’t afford to accept prayerlessness in your life; Fight to devote your mind and time to the pursuit of communion with the Creator of the universe and lover of your soul.

[loulou7]

@PinkPebbles - Your post reminds me of a pastor that used to say:

Much Prayer = Much Power
Little Prayer = Little Power
No Prayer = No Power

[Laela]

This entry blesses my soul so...

Originally Posted by PinkPebbles

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

You’ve been misunderstood. Slammed. Lied about. Something is going around and it isn’t true.

Your choice? Vindication.

“I have to explain myself. I have to get them to understand,” you say to yourself, and so off you go to fix things, manage the situation, get people to understand. And suddenly God slips from the throne of your life and up you crawl to take your rightful place.

Screech. “Stop this ride, I want to get off!”

It’s time to take a lesson from Jesus and get back on track. Listen, He wasn’t in the habit of explaining everything when He was walking on earth. Almost unimaginably, He left misunderstandings to correct themselves- or better said, He left it to God to work things out in the lives of the people who misunderstood him, lied about him, or generally hated him.

Isn’t His example good enough for you? Or are you willing to imitate the perfect one?

Sure, it won’t be easy, but godliness rarely is. As long as you are looking for vindication in the eyes of other human beings, you are going to be completely distracted from God.

And that distraction will affect your heart, your mind, and your body. Get your focus off the world and onto God.

What people think or say has no bearing on eternity. Don’t give them more power over you than they deserve, but choose to make your investment in the eternal and let the King work out the temporary for Himself.

[PinkPebbles]

Originally Posted by loulou7

@PinkPebbles - Your post reminds me of a pastor that used to say:

Much Prayer = Much Power
Little Prayer = Little Power
No Prayer = No Power

@loulou7 Great word!

I definitely see a difference in my life by having prayer as a priority!

Originally Posted by Laela

This entry blesses my soul so...

@Laela I'm glad that you are blessed! My soul is blessed as well as these devotionals have become an eye-opener for me.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Love by Hayley DiMarco

True Love can’t hold itself back.

When you’re in love, your heart wants to tell the world, because it feels like if you don’t it’s just going to burst.

Love notes, love songs, and love poetry all come from a heart filled to overflowing with adoration and passion. But after a while it can be easy to forget to tell the people you love what you love about them.

Life gets in the way, times get tough, tempers flare, and suddenly you aren’t speaking all lovey to each other anymore. But love needs to be talked about; it needs to be given in the form of verbal appreciation and adoration.

We have to tell the people we love why we love them, and tell them often. Song of Songs is an example of this, and we need to do the same thing when it comes to our love for God.

In the life of faith, the God woman wants to tell her God how much she adores Him. She wants to tell Him how much He means to her, not only to worship Him but to remind her own heart of all that He is.

If she doesn’t do this, she can quickly forget all about His goodness and holiness. As a God Woman you have to concentrate on the goodness of God. You have to remind yourself how you’ve been touched by His kindness, His provision, and His power. Tell God every day what His presence in your life means.

The God Woman knows that the power of love rest in her ability to speak words of love.

God’s love for you is expressed in his word and in the life of his Son, the word made flesh.

Don’t miss His love songs, love letters, and love gifts. Know love and know Him. Speak love and be known by Him.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Love by Hayley DiMarco

Is your love self-less or selfish?

Selfish love demands something in return. Love, acceptance, kindness, concern -something. It gives therefore it wants to get.

Selfish love is always thinking, "what's in it for me?" And it's always asking, “why should I love you when you won’t love me back?” But selfish love isn’t really love at all, because true love thinks nothing of itself but focuses on loving others in order to serve them and Christ, who is our example of self-less love.

Unconditional love is something we all want as human beings. We want to be loved no matter what we do, but how often are we willing to return love the same way?

We make demands and set rules on our love, but true love doesn’t make demands. It is given freely and abundantly. The only rule when it comes to giving love is that love for a human can never come before our love for God.

Our love should never try to replace the Holy Spirit but should flow from His presence.

How many times do you give kindness and then scream when you get anger in return?

How many times do you give advice and then complain when it isn’t followed?

Do you resent it when you give understanding and compassion and receive nothing of the kind in return?

The love you give to others should never be conditional on what you get back, but it should come from knowing the God who first loved you. You should be compelled by His love, not the response from other people.

You should be defined by God’s love, not the actions of others.

When your focus is not getting but giving, then your love will grow, and through that all other virtues will flow!

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

Scent is an amazing thing. It can affect your mood, your emotions, and your thoughts.

Smelling is powerful that it can make you feel just like you felt the last time you smelled the same thing. Good smells have a way of calming us, and some say certain scents even help us to concentrate, but smells can also be disgusting.

A lot of scents leave you running in the opposite direction. They can hit you like a slap in the face and make you want to cover your nose and mouth in self-protection.

In the spiritual realm, think of obedience to God as a good smell that God loves to inhale.

Love, kindness, selflessness, giving, and serving all are soothing aromas to God. They are what He looks for in the lives of His children. But sin is a stench that makes God turn His head and disregard even the prayers of the stinky (see Prov. 28:9).

What is the aroma of your life?

Does it drift up to the Lord in heaven with a lovely scent, or is it a disgusting stench?

If you aren’t sure, then check your thoughts and your actions. Do they match God’s word or are they in conflict?

A life in conflict is an unpleasant aroma, but a life set on pleasing God and finding out what He likes and dislikes is a soothing aroma.

May you find out what pleases God and do it. May He be charmed by the fragrance of your actions rather than repulsed by them.

[PinkPebbles]

I really like this devotional.

As women we put a lot of effort into looking good and smelling good. We buy so many hair conditioners, oils, soaps, and perfume. We pay special attention to the scent and how each product is packaged. If the product doesn’t look or smell good….it’s a no, no.

After reading this devotional, I said to myself I’m going to pay close attention to my internal – spiritual, personality, and character scent.

I’m going to ask myself what scent I’m leaving behind; what scent I’m subjecting others to that are around me!?! If my scent lingers would someone suffocate or be blessed!?! And more importantly is God pleased.

You never know what a person is going through and God can use your lovely scent at that very moment to reach the heart of someone.

Be mindful of your internal scent…..you never know who is in the crowd.

Originally Posted by PinkPebbles

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

Scent is an amazing thing. It can affect your mood, your emotions, and your thoughts.

Smelling is powerful that it can make you feel just like you felt the last time you smelled the same thing. Good smells have a way of calming us, and some say certain scents even help us to concentrate, but smells can also be disgusting.

A lot of scents leave you running in the opposite direction. They can hit you like a slap in the face and make you want to cover your nose and mouth in self-protection.

In the spiritual realm, think of obedience to God as a good smell that God loves to inhale.

Love, kindness, selflessness, giving, and serving all are soothing aromas to God. They are what He looks for in the lives of His children. But sin is a stench that makes God turn His head and disregard even the prayers of the stinky (see Prov. 28:9).

What is the aroma of your life?

Does it drift up to the Lord in heaven with a lovely scent, or is it a disgusting stench?

If you aren’t sure, then check your thoughts and your actions. Do they match God’s word or are they in conflict?

A life in conflict is an unpleasant aroma, but a life set on pleasing God and finding out what He likes and dislikes is a soothing aroma.

May you find out what pleases God and do it. May He be charmed by the fragrance of your actions rather than repulsed by them.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

The world might tell you that you are a victim.

You were hurt, abused, rejected, and abandoned, and that’s why you have issues, addictions, and drama in your life. When you believe that your messed-up life is because of something beyond your control, you give away the power over your own life that you so desperately want.

As long as you are busy blaming someone else for your life, you’ll never be free. You’ll never have control, and you’ll never take responsibility for yourself.

Part of becoming a God Woman is choosing to stop running away from the stuff that will make you more holy and happy, and that is being honest about your role in your own messed-up life, no matter who started it.

It’s called confession, and confession is good stuff. It purifies the soul because it gets to the bottom of what’s going on in yourself without worrying about what someone else did or didn’t do.

Confession agrees with God and His word about sin and says to Him, “You are holy and I want to be holy too.”

It says no matter what others do or have done, I’m siding with God and living a life that pleases him because I know that’s His Will.” When you do that, you’ll have all the protection and hope you need.

Don’t accept the pattern of avoiding honest confession like the first people did or like the world around you does. Confession might hurt, and it will probably feel totally uncomfortable and even dangerous, but the truth is, it’s the safest and healthiest thing you could do.

Confessing is good for the soul, and it proves that you don’t belong to yourself but to God.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know God by Hayley DiMarco

Sin is an internal action that leads to an external result. You might think its all external and say things like “the enemy is making me sin” or “I can’t control myself.”

You want change but you feel powerless. When you blame your actions on being addicted to something or on having an illness that makes you what you are, you are saying that your actions are beyond your control. But that’s a lie. After all, how could a just God condemn sin if sin was out of your control?

The truth is that your sin is within your control. God has defined sin in scripture, and because of that we know what He is completely against. If God is against your sin and He wants you to be free from it, then why aren’t you? It comes down to the way you think.

In order be free from sin, you have to change what you think about that sin. The beauty about calling a sin a sin is that it gives you power to overcome it. When you label things as they are, you take responsibility and therefore take control of your life.

Since God never commands you to do the impossible, if he has commanded you not to do something (sin), then you can be sure that not doing it is totally doable. Sin does not have power over you (see Rom. 6:14).

As long as you are willing to call sin what it is, God Woman, you can overcome everything that offends God by the power of His Spirit.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Yourself by Hayley DiMarco

When life starts spinning out of control, when you feel like you can’t go on, and when nothing is going your way, there is something you can do: remember the bottom line. Review the facts- just the facts is all you need.

Answer these questions:

1. Is God who He says He is?
2. Does He love you or not?
3. Is His Will good or bad?
4. Does anything happen to you without Him allowing it?
5. Does He truly work everything together for the good of the people who love Him?
6. Do you want God’s Will or your own?

If you can honestly answer these questions, then you can get over any trauma in your life and get to the truth of the matter. After all, your feelings are just your simple interpretation of a situation, a lot of times without considering the facts of the matter.

When you panic about life, you miss out on the bottom line – the truth about God and His role in your life. For a true believer, life is never spinning out of control and never near disaster. It is always built on the rock and safe under His wings.

When you allow your emotions to become your sacred truth, you lose all hope and worry sets in. If you want to be free from fear and angst, you have to remember the facts.

When you can look at your life through the reality of God’s love and Will for you, then you will find a whole new life full of peace and calm.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know How to Communicate by Hayley DiMarco

Humility is the foundation of all godliness. Without it you can’t confess your sins or ask Jesus to save you.

Humility is the beginning of all righteousness, and so it’s crucial to the God Woman. But what about when you are humiliated by a bad or prideful person?

When you’re faced with the sin of someone else’s pride, your first instinct isn’t holiness. The natural human reaction is retaliation or revenge. In fact, other people’s sin can become an excuse for your sin if you’re not careful.

“But she started it!” or “How dare he!” you say, and game on!

When they sin, your sense of fairness kicks in, and the last thing on your mind is meekness and obedience. That’s how things get started – fights, arguments, bitterness.

Troubled relationships start with a lack of humility, which keeps us from finding peace when others are sinning. It’s as if your mind decides that it’s not fair that you have to be good when they’re being so bad. But that’s human thinking, not godly thinking.

If God’s law depended on the actions of others, then even the pagans would be considered obedient (check out Matt. 5:46-48). But God’s law depends not on what they do but on who He is.

In any relationship it’s crucial for you, as a God woman, to know what God commands instead of relying on what other people do. In every battle you have to choose what God wants you to choose, even if the result will be your humiliation.

It sounds counterintuitive, but mean people are changed not by your retaliation but by your prayer. So go to God in prayer instead of going to them in anger. Trust that His law is good even if it seems unfair. And you will find yourself with more peace than you know what to do with.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know God by Hayley DiMarco

Are you spiritually lazy? It’s easy to be so busy and so energetic in life that you have nothing left for spiritual stuff.

But if you want more faith, more hope, more peace – if you want more of God and His presence – then you can’t afford to be lazy. Your soul will go hungry if you let yourself be spiritually lazy (see Prov. 19:15).

Spiritual laziness starts when you don’t have the energy to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And it keeps going when you are too worn out or exhausted to get up and do what you know God is asking you to do.

When you see a need and you don’t fill it, when you hear a cry for help and you’re too busy to answer, spiritual laziness will distract you and comfort you for the moment.

When you stay in bed an extra half hour instead of getting up early to spend time with God, you miss out on an opportunity to hear from Him.

When you skip reading your bible to go out and have fun, you miss the chance to have more of God in your life.

Every time you fall into the trap of spiritual laziness, you are refusing to feed your soul, and as a result your soul gets weak and fearful.

Guard your heart, your mind, and your soul by becoming aware of your tendency to choose the easy way instead of devotion and discipline.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know True Happiness by Hayley DiMarco

Are you ever satisfied? Do you ever have enough? Or is there always something more you want or think you need?

It’s easy to see all the world has to offer and to have a continual wish list. “I want this, and this, and that…..” and the list goes on and on. But what does all this wanting say about you? And what does it sound like to the ears of God?

In the desert, the Israelites complained because they were tired of just eating manna all day every day, so God dropped all kinds of birds out of heaven for them to eat. But then they were bored with just birds and bread and wanted something different, and God got mad.

How awful it must feel to give and give and continually hear “That’s just not enough.” Seems like if that happened to you, eventually you’d just want to give up trying – after all, the person is never going to be satisfied.

But when you love God and you know the lengths He went to in order to save you, you start to realize that you really don’t deserve anything, but He has given you everything.

Discontentment only becomes a problem when you get your head stuck in the world and lose your focus because you see pretty things and you want them. But when you can get your focus back on the big picture and the things that really matter, all that fades away into the background.

If you want to be free of the wanting and not getting, quit looking in front of you and start looking up. Forget what your eyes, ears, and mouth want and go after what your soul needs. When you do, God will be right there ready to give it to you.

[PinkPebbles]

Devotional Series on Feelings....
Know Love by Hayley DiMarco

There are a lot of places you can look for protection and rescue. A lot of people, things, and actions promise to save you from your life, misery, and your pain, but the truth is that there’s only one salvation, one rescuer, one protector, and that is God.

When life overwhelms you and when storms come, there is a safe harbor. God’s hand is reaching out to protect you, but you have to lift your arm and reach back.

You can’t sit with your arms crossed and eyes down just wondering when the rescue is going to get here. He’s already here, and He’s just waiting for you to take His hand. The only condition to this rescue is your love.

When you love God, He stands strong and tall by your side. He becomes your strong tower, your rock, your sure foundation. He is everything you need to build on and to grow. He is your source of strength and protection.

So when the storms come, when the attacks fall, don’t look around for help but look up to the Helper. Trust His word to be true, it will never steer you wrong. As soon as you are ready to accept His protection, you immediately have it. His word is your lifeline, His Son your salvation.

Don’t be so blind that you don’t see the very hand of God reaching out to save you. Reach out in faith and grab hold of it. When you do you will find all the protection you need, and your life will be saved from the pit of despair.

[Laela]

Catching up on my reading in this thread...

[Nice Lady]

Pink Pebbles, this is a great thread. Knowledge is power. You could even create a group off dealing with unchecked feelings. The Word becomes power when we don't just read this thread or catch up, but apply it.

Thanks for taking the time to share it. Just doing one of the readings makes a difference. That's true for an authentic Christian experience even though we still need God's grace

[PinkPebbles]

Originally Posted by Nice Lady

Pink Pebbles, this is a great thread. Knowledge is power. You could even create a group off dealing with unchecked feelings. The Word becomes power when we don't just read this thread or catch up, but apply it.

Thanks for taking the time to share it. Just doing one of the readings makes a difference. That's true for an authentic Christian experience even though we still need God's grace

@Nice Lady it truly does feel victorious when applying God's word to our daily lives .

These devotionals continuously help and strengthen me and I hope it blesses others as well!